Comment Digby’s peer pressure to slash the Lords

allowance of up to £300 a day when he attends debates.

Lord Jones said he used his Lords position to promote the UK, saying: “I go in and I will invite for lunch or meet with inward investors into the country. I fly the flag for Britain.

“I show a lot of people around the Lords, from overseas investors to school pupils.”

The peer, who makes media appearances in his role as a high-profile business figure, also said attending debates gave him a better understanding of important issues facing the country.

“I listen very often to debates and I learn a lot from it, and because I’m there I can understand subjects between which I then talk about on television or the radio or in speeches I give around the country.”

But Lord Jones told the Birmingham Post it was important to reform the House of Lords – and reduce its size dramatically.

“I think it’s too many. There are 810 of them. Only the Chinese Communist Party congress has got more people in it.”

He said party leaders should be stripped of the power to make political appointments to the House of Lords. At the moment, it is common for former MPs or other loyal party members to be appointed simply to keep up the numbers on each side.

Lord Jones also said he would abolish the 92 hereditary peers.

The Lords was once dominated by people who inherited a seat from a parent, and although most of these were removed in 1999 there are still 92 that remain.

He said: “Just because your daddy’s rich or was an earl doesn’t give you the right to be in there.

“You might be in there because you’re good enough, that’s great.”

Anyone who committed an indictable offence should be excluded from the Lords, he said. Under present rules, the only people permanently excluded are those convicted of treason. Lord Jones also suggested an age limit. He said: “Maybe 80. Certainly not over 80. It may be 75.” And he said members of the House of Lords who failed to attend should be removed. “If you don’t attend than I’ll give you your wish, you don’t have to come again. If you did all that, you’d get it down to about 300.” Lords should also be appointed for fixed periods of 15 years, rather than for life as now, said Lord Jones. “If you put in retirement after 15 years, I think it would be an excellent way of refreshing the Lords and allowing it to do what it’s there for, to be the second of the Houses of Parliament.” Lord Jones, along with fellow Birmingham peer Lord Whitby of Harborne, the former leader of Birmingham City Council, was accused earlier this year of being part of a “something for nothing” culture.

The Electoral Reform Society published a report which found that peers from across the country who haven’t spoken in the Lords for an entire year claimed nearly £1.3 million in expenses and allowances,

It said 115 Lords – one in seven of the total – failed to speak at all in the 2016/17 session, despite claiming an average of £11,091 each, while 18 peers failed to vote but still claimed £93,162.

The 1999 reforms of the House of Lords were intended to be a temporary measure until more radical changes could be introduced. But successive governments have found it impossible to forge agreement on what sort of changes should be introduced.

Lord Jones isn’t alone in thinking there are too many peers.

Norman Fowler, the former MP for Sutton Coldfield and now Lord Fowler, the Lords Speaker, has said he wants to reduce the number in the House of Lords.

Only the Chinese Communist Party congress has got more people in it